Nuclear Proliferation

NEW DELHI: In an apparent reference to Pakistan, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee said there was a very real threat of atomic weapons falling into hands of terrorists. He also sought strict controls over such arsenal by countries having established nuclear programmes. Mr Mukherjee said the challenges of terrorism and nuclear proliferation were inter-connected and 'alarming aspect' was the linkages that radical terror groups have forged with 'a few nuclear scientists'.

WASHINGTON: The global community should not forget the dangers posed by Pakistan's nuclear weapons and its two new heavy water plants capable of producing 24 atomic warheads a year, a top former British official has said. Liam Fox , the former British Defence Secretary , said the international community should not risk to forget Pakistan, which was not a stable country. "Here in Washington, with all the focus on Iran at the...

ISLAMABAD: Canada will review the understanding on civilian nuclear co-operation reached with India by the previous regime, PM Stephen Harper said. "This is a decision made by the previous government, obviously my government would want to review the decisions taken. We are against nuclear proliferation," he said. Mr Harper arrived here on Tuesday, said after talks with Pakistan PM Shaukat Aziz. He was referring to the understanding reached between the foreign ministers of India and Canada last...

WASHINGTON: The US intelligence community predicted India's atomic bomb in 1964 but mistakenly concluded Israel had "not yet decided" to go nuclear, according to newly declassified documents. The documents were released yesterday by the National Security Archive ( NSA ) and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project. Such an analysis came from the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) from October 1964, which had details about the nuclear...

WASHINGTON: A top Republican presidential aspirant has cited the now defunct network of Pakistan's disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan to dwell on the dangers of nuclear proliferation in particular efforts of rogue states like North Korea and Libya to acquire nuclear technology. "I don't know if you follow the story of A Q Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who stole technologies from Europe, brought it back. He's a national hero in Pakistan," ...

UNITED NATIONS: India has voted against the provisions of draft resolutions that would have required it to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), saying there is "no question" of it joining the treaty as a non- nuclear weapon state. Deeply concerned about the growing dangers of nuclear and other mass destruction weapons caused by proliferation networks, the First Committee of the 193-member UN General Assembly that deals with...

WASHINGTON: The global community should not forget the dangers posed by Pakistan's nuclear weapons and its two new heavy water plants capable of producing 24 atomic warheads a year, a top former British official has said. Liam Fox , the former British Defence Secretary , said the international community should not risk to forget Pakistan, which was not a stable country. "Here in Washington, with all the focus on Iran at the...

UNITED NATIONS: The 62nd anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack which devastated the Japanese city of Hiroshima serves as a "powerful reminder" of efforts needed to halt nuclear proliferation, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said. "Today, our challenge -- as it was for the founders of the United Nations -- is to make the world safer for succeeding generations," Ban said in a message delivered by UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Sergio...

LONDON: A top European court has declared sanctions imposed by the EU Council against Bank Mellat, Iran's largest private bank, as unlawful. In a ruling, the General Court of the European Union said "there is no evidence to justify the European Council's decision to list Bank Mellat under its Iran sanctions list. "The European Council had in 2010 included Bank Mellat on its 'blacklist' of designated entities presumed to be involved with Iran's...

BEIJING: Risking the hard-won forward movement in India-China relations, the Chinese official media has attacked the Indo-US nuclear energy co-operation agreement insisting that the bilateral deal will inflict a "hard blow" to global non-proliferation regime and trigger a domino effect. "This would be a hard blow on America's leading role in the global proliferation prevention system as well as the system itself," the Renmin Ribao (People's Daily), the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party...

UNITED NATIONS: India today called for "time-bound, non-discriminatory, phased and verifiable" universal nuclear disarmament, and sought to build a new international consensus on the issue which was first raised 25 years ago by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In his address to the UN General Assembly , Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also called for building international consensus on key issues like cyber security, nonproliferation and terrorism. "This...

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns after a successful visit to Japan, the two countries' defence and economic ties are set to improve. Over the next five years, Japan will invest $35 billion in Indian infrastructure. These will include bullet trains, smart cities, manufacturing and other sectors. Infrastructure and manufacturing will thus get a Tokyo-led fillip, and that will be a good thing. Traditionally, the function of this sort of state-led...

WASHINGTON: Seeking to bring ebbing bilateral ties back on track, India and the US today discussed maritime security and expanding regional trade in the Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor and beyond, administration officials said. During the sixth session of the US-India East Asia Consultations , top US officials "conveyed their condolences" to the Indian delegation for the crew killed in yesterday's crash of Indian Air Force's newly-acquired C-130J Super Hercules ...

THE HAGUE: India today warned that nuclear terrorism and clandestine proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including attempts by "non-state actors", pose a serious threat to global peace and any breach in nuclear security could undermine public confidence in atomic energy. "We should together deny terrorists what they seek and eliminate the risks of sensitive materials and technologies falling into their hands," External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid ...

BEIJING: Chinese president Xi Jinping has said that his country places "equal emphasis" on development of nuclear energy and security, giving the same attention to rights and obligations of the member countries. Elaborating China's nuclear security concept, Xi told the third Nuclear Security Summit at The Hague yesterday that the use of nuclear energy gave new impetus to the progress of humanity, yet mankind must be able to respond to various...

BEIJING: Describing Indian and US criticism of China's controversial plan to build two 1,100-MW nuclear reactors in Karachi as unjustified, a Chinese expert has said such concerns are aimed at "obstructing" China-Pakistan cooperation. "This cooperation will ease Pakistan's shortage of energy and deepen bilateral strategic partnership between China and Pakistan," Chen Jidong , executive director of the Pakistan Study Centre at Sichuan University, said...

Washington: A long, Independence-day weekend came in handy for the Bush administration to escape the embarrassment arising from the disclosure by Pakistan's nuclear helmsman AQ Khan that Washington's long-time surrogate President Pervez Musharraf was in the loop about the country's nuclear deals with North Korea. US administration officials have frequently issued a clean chit to Musharraf on nuclear proliferation activities despite the wide-spread belief in the strategic affairs...

WASHINGTON: China might have provided its close ally Pakistan a fairly comprehensive package of proven nuclear weapons design in late 1970s and the CIA knew about it, according to a recently declassified document. "The CIA had evidence suggesting close Pakistan-China nuclear cooperation, to the point of facilitating a nuclear weapons capability, although the intelligence community saw this as possibly a special case based on an alliance that...

The UN and the European Union along with the UK, Russia and China today welcomed the historic agreement reached between Iran and six world powers on Tehran's contentious nuclear programme and asked all parties to build on the "encouraging" start. Warmly welcoming the interim agreement that would temporarily freeze Iran's nuclear programme, UN chief Ban Ki-moon congratulated the negotiators for the progress made in "what could turn out to be the beginnings of a historic agreement for...

UNITED NATIONS: India today called for "time-bound, non-discriminatory, phased and verifiable" universal nuclear disarmament, and sought to build a new international consensus on the issue which was first raised 25 years ago by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In his address to the UN General Assembly , Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also called for building international consensus on key issues like cyber security, nonproliferation and terrorism. "This...